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bdcrazy writes "Two way communication with prosthetic devices allows man who lost both arms in an accident to feel hot and cold, to sense objects and to actually move the prosthetic device to pick things up and put them down.
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lineman for a Tennessee power company, Sullivan in 2001 grabbed a high-tension wire carrying 7,400 volts of electricity, which incinerated his arms.
If his 12V arms shorted I don't think it would even phase this guy.

These work using a peltier junction. For those not "in-the-know", peltier junctions are basically chunks of metal that push heat to one side when you run current through them one way, and the other side when you run current through them the other way. This provides a cold, and a hot side that can be varied very quickly from cold to hot, by changing the amount and direction of the current. They are very inefficient though, requiring a lot of current that is generated as excess heat overall. These are commonly used to cool processor cores down, pushing more heat into the heatsink, but keeping the core cooler than it would be with just a heatsink.

These are commonly used to cool processor cores down, pushing more heat into the heatsink, but keeping the core cooler than it would be with just a heatsink.

I'd disagree that they're "commonly used" for CPU cooling. Peltier heat sink assemblies have fallen way out of vogue in the last few years and were never particularly popular in the first place. Problems like generating a significantly higher amount of waste heat, while simultaneously creating a frost (no kidding) and condensation problem made them extremely impractical when faced with water cooling options.

That being said, peltier cooling IS commonly used in those little desk top refridgerators and portable DC cooler/warmers that you see for sale in RV catalogs.

Peltier junctions are most often used for CPU cooling, I suppose is what I meant to say, though that was just a guess. I've also seen them in those port-o-coolers too... Anybody know of anything else these are used for?

I've actually often wondered what it would take to give a synthetic sense of touch to something. I'm guessing this "peltier junction" must be the best option for temperature since that's what their using? What else would you need, and how would you accomplish it? You would need the ability to feel whether or not something is hard or soft, whether or not it is rough or smooth, and that's really about it? Could both smoothness and hardness be deteched by the same sensors? If anyone knows please reply...it's f

Well, in this article, it says that the nerves from the guy's hand were reattached into his chest, attached to a pneumatic plunger that would push on the nerves when his replacement hand was pushed on; that would give him the sense of touch/pressure, though I doubt it has the resolution for something like surface texture. I'm assuming in this case (it's how it's done elsewhere in prosthetics) that there are also peltier junctions touching the nerves to provide the hot/cold sensation. In the past, the peltie

That's essentially what they're doing here. They're using temperature-sensors in the fingers of the robotic hand, and then using peltier junctions directly connected to the nerve endings from the old hand that relay that temperature to the brain.

It'd be nice if we had direct interfaces into the brain, but we don't yet.

These work using a Peltier junction. For those not "in-the-know", Peltier junctions are basically chunks of metal that push heat to one side when you run current through them one way, and the other side when you run current through them the other way.

Umm - not exactly. What you are describing is commonly known as a TEC, or "Thermoelectric Cooler" (and also known as a Peltier cooler [digit-life.com]). They are not composed of a single Peltier junction, but rather a large multitude of such junctions in what is basically a se

Uh, no... I was describing a peltier junction, as in one single solitary junction. A peltier junction is a chunk of metal (I simplified, hence my use of the word "basically", it's actually a chunk of _two_ metals, excuse me) that pushes heat to one side or another depending on which way you shove current through them... Which is also exactly the way you described them, and exactly what I described... I'm missing the part where I was wrong.

Where did they find his penis? And what caused it to go missing in the first place? Did they reattach his actual penis, or was it a prosthetic binary-temperature device like the one described in this topic's article?

Yea, it doesn't really fit with this version of the joke. The way I heard it was that the guy is amazed that his arm will do anything he tells it and never gets tired, so he goes to a bar and orders beer after beer, thus leading to his poor choice of words...

So then the next logical step is that he gets a prosthetic, voice-controlled penis, right? What's so wrong about that? Back in my youth I would get erections all the time in public. A fine lady would walk by, and my flagpole would stand at attention! But now with a voice controlled penis this man could say, "Down, boy! Down! Down!" and his penis would go flimsy.

So far it's only cost about $100,000, which is far cheaper than the $6,000,000 that was originally estimated. Maybe we'll get a little closer to that price once another arm is added, and some legs and a head and body...

Why on earth would anyone want to trade in a real arm for a robotic one? Why not just have 3 arms?

Three arms wouldn't look appealing on a human body, for one.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to get organic replacement parts for my body as I grow older. If they aren't available by then, I wouldn't mind robotic ones, assuming they were at least as good as what they were replacing.

Robotic arms - or better yet, a full body, General Grievous-style - would be really useful in a lot of ways. You could race motorcy

Masamune Shirow, the Sci-Fi author of Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell says that removing organs will decrease brain activity. Replacing not only limbs but also organs or your whole torso might make you a mouth breathing idiot.

His characters don't have that problem but he's writing Sci-Fi.

He also said that total body cyborgification is better if you want superhuman strenght because a super strong arm is no good if lifting something heavy will just rip it off it's fleshy attachements.

I would love to have a hand on my forehead. I have tried to convince my girlfriend that this would, in fact be wicked cool (even more so than my idea for over-and-under double barreled penises) but she doesn't seem to get it.

Think about it--sipping coffee, smoking a cigarette, keeping your sunglases from slipping off your forehead, reading maps while driving, the possibilities are endless.

It probably won't take us long to make an arm that in some ways exceeds the capabilities of real arms. Your first thought is strength, but a strong arm requires a strong body to support it. But you might embed other things in it that Nature hasn't seen fit to provide us, or at least have an arm that is strong without having to be exercised.

But it will likely be a while before we have an arm that is a uniform improvement over our real arms. Healing, for instance, is a real

If I live in a city, and I'm willing to bet my arms that society will not collapse so far that I can't get my arms fixed, it may be a good tradeoff.

On the other hand, if for some reason I will not or can not depend on a technological society to back me up indefinately, I may choose to keep my conventional arms, which will, most likely, continue working effectively indefinitely, until the rest of me is dead. (There are several caveats in that "most likely".)

Yeah, but the early models will be hell on your essence. Also - while we're talking about burning essence - why bothering with bioware if you can just buy a natural-looking cyberlimb and hide, say, a shotgun in it? Versatility is what keeps you running, chummer.

They're making progress in this ares, but still have a long way to go. I wonder how long it will take for the researchers to develop some kind of motor system that is lightweight and has enough tourque to more accurately mimic normal human movements.

This may also advance the general robotics fields too (I would love to have a robot to fetch food and clean).

Sullivan's prosthesis has a computer in the forearm that is wired to a mechanical hand and to a "plunger" device on his chest. The hand sends signals up the wires to the plunger, which pushes the skin. That stimulates the nerves in his chest to transmit sensations to the brain as if the nerves were still connected to his real hand.On Wednesday, when Kuiken touched a spot on Sullivan's chest, Sullivan said: "Oh, that's right between the finger and thumb on the back side of the hand."If Kuiken touches one of Sullivan's prosthetic fingers, Sullivan can feel it and say which finger it is.

Wow. I just know he is glad he can still play the "pull my finger" game with his grandkids.

It most likely runs the embedded vxWorks operating system. Linux would probably be far too featureful for a system like this. While Linux is better for larger embedded systems, like PDAs, DVD players, and so on, extremely small systems like this can very often have literally no extra overhead. That is why a very stripped down, minimal system like vxWorks is used.

KRYTEN: Okay, now let's recap: the limb is connected to neurons which run up to
the left hemisphere of your brain, which controls the right side of your
body. Now, all you have to do is merely command the arm to do something, and it
obeys. Now, let's practice. Right, concentrate, sir. I want you to think: "arm - pick up the ball".

Two way communication with prosthetic devices allows man who lost both arms in an accident to feel hot and cold, to sense objects and to actually move the prosthetic device to pick things up and put them down.

But will it let him to type in his login and password so he can read the story about himself?

Two way communication with the prosthetic is a huge breakthrough! Glad to see this is becoming possible.

Without this kind of feedback, control becomes...very difficult. For example, think of the cruise control in a car. You can make a decent one with a pair of opamps. The (oversimplified) way it works is that it takes the speed you're going and finds the difference between that and the speed you'd like to be going and uses that difference to work out how much to push in your accelerator.

You know, one of my favorite lines ever in a movie is in Buffy the Vampire Slayer when the vampire says "There's nothing you can do that we can't do better" or something like that, and Buffy says "Clap!".

my dad has lost one arm and the use of another arm in a hay baler. while i am always excited to see this kind of technology advancing, it is obviously aways away from practical use for a farmer. my dad has recently expressed alot of interest in using a computer, does anyone know anything that would make the computing experience easier for someone with no mobility in limbs?

There's a fair amount of stuff that can be voice-activated these days (the Mac I'm writing this on has a lot on it by default) so I imagine that depending on what he wanted to do on the computer, he might be able to go that route. I've also seen foot pedal input devices, although I imagine that those are really limited. I haven't actually used any of these things, but that might give you a start.

... when in a story like this, that really SHOULD be touching and make you feel excited about human progress, 95% of the (high rated) comments are the smart-ass remarks from cynical assholes and masturbation jokes. Way to go, guys!

More like one of those instants where your brain, while processing the signals you've just sent to your appendages, says to itself:

Fuck. This guy's an idiot.

I've done stupid things with electricty. Similar things. Not once, but twice, I've touched both metal ends of a Flourescent light tube while the light was on. Once while a box cutter was in my hand, touching the metal end of one of the lights. Not me showing off being an idiot, just having one of those beautiful moments where Darwin should have taken over. My hands got moving faster than my mind could slow them down.

This guy was probably up on a cherry picker. His weight shifted, a gust of wind came along, etc and as he started to fall his insticts yelled:

Where I did my electronics engineering apprenticeship, we had a guy who had suffered a similar accident. His whole nervous system was shot to pieces and he had to wear tinted glasses because his eyes became sensitive to light. He had two claws for arms...and worked as a draughtsman in the drawing office!

One day he was in front of me at a drinks vending machine and he asked me to put the coins in for him as this was about the only thing he couldn't do with his claws. He punched the buttons and out came a cup of coffee. Just as he went to pick it up, the plastic 'splash door' on the front of the cup area (which was stuck up) came down and knocked the cup, spilling coffee over his claw.

Was this one of those famous, "Hold my beer and watch this!" situations that seem to have become so well known?

Most probably not. There was a similar case in an electric power company where I used to work years ago. This is how it happened: A maintenance crew was doing a job in a 180MW generator in a power plant. While an engineer was holding simultaneously the 13800 volts busbar, with a short-circuit current of 20000 amps, with one hand and the grounded rack with the other hand, someone closed the breake